As you may have seen on the Welcome page, this approach is based on the recognition that children are natural mimics — that if they’re interested in what they see us doing, they will spontaneously absorb and copy it. Here, we examine how we help a child learn to speak, and how that compares with helping them learn to read.
What We Know & What We Need to Consider
We know the child comes to us with the ability to accomplish amazing things in their early years. They learn to walk, talk, and otherwise navigate a very complex environment. We also know the child’s tendency to copy us is so strong and effective, that we have to be careful what we say and do around them.
But we usually don’t look carefully at the strategy nature has given them to do that — or the role we play in it.
So, we’ll do that here. For being more aware of that strategy helps us realize that approaching reading by using the way a child learns naturally — is much easier for any child. And that it’s easier for us, too. For we’re using the child’s energy, instead of fighting against it.
We begin by looking at how we help a child learn to talk — for we can clearly see nature’s strategy at work there.
Learning to Talk
We don’t directly “teach” a child to talk. That is, we don’t sit them in their highchair and demonstrate how to say the words we’ve decided they should learn that day.
We don’t break those words down into separate sounds, then carefully demonstrate how the child should breathe and place their tongue just so, to make those sounds.
Instead, while carrying out an activity with special meaning for the child, we model the words associated with it. Then the child watches, listens, and effortlessly absorbs what they see and hear us doing — if they’re interested in it.
For instance, if a cat comes into the room, we may pet it, saying things like, “Hello Kitty!” Let’s pet the kitty… Be gentle with the kitty… Good Kitty…” and so on.
After a few times of this, the child will excitedly call out “Keee, keee!” when the cat appears. Eventually one day, we hear them clearly say, “Kitty!”
We can’t see exactly how the child accomplishes this — and so much else. It remains a mystery to us, and we don’t need to know.
What we do need to know and to trust is that — barring some extreme physical or emotional barrier — they can and will continue to develop the ability to speak as we model for them in this way — always focusing on things of special interest to them.
The Basic Strategy Involved in Learning to Talk
Bottom line, we don’t “teach” a child to talk. In fact, studies of speech acquisition suggest that —
Adults help a child learn to talk by modeling,
And as we model, we emphasize words with special meaning to the child.
Then if the child is interested, they spontaneously
Absorb and copy what they see and hear us doing.
And, they can do the same with print!
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The only difference with print is we guide the child’s efforts to copy us, as we write what they say.
Ignoring this natural strategy — as traditional methods do — makes learning to read more difficult than it needs to be. Children from a print-rich home environment can overcome this, but too many others cannot. Too many struggle, lose confidence, and just simply give up.
Yet any struggle with print is completely unnecessary — if we start by showing them how their own “talk” looks written down. And we can do this in any language.
See how, beginning with the page, Write/Read Naturally!
Or, to see why it’s best to start with writing, see The Child’s Natural Path.